Isabelle Huppert speaks with philosopher Simon Critchley about controversial heroine and the multiple interpretations—from Seneca to Kane to Mouawad—that make up this fall’s presentation of Phaedra(s).

PHAEDRA INTERPRETED
With Charles Mee and Caridad Svich
Moderated by Kaneza Schaal
A program of the Brooklyn Book Festival
Part of Onassis Programs at BAM
Sunday, September 18
11:00 AM
Borough Hall Courtroom, Brooklyn
Free

Playwrights Charles Mee and Caridad Svich examine how the myth of Phaedra has been reinterpreted across artistic media to reflect contemporary society—and the timeless truths it continues to reveal—in a conversation moderated by theater artist Kaneza Schaal.

ON DEATH
In conjunction with The Undertaking
With Simon Critchley
Part of Onassis Programs at BAM
Thursday, September 22, post-show
BAM Fisher Lower Lobby
Free for same-day ticket holders
Philosopher Simon Critchley talks about death and the afterlife over drinks with audience members in this informal discussion sparked by The Civilians’ new play, The Undertaking, and Critchley’s own inquiries into the subject in his books Memory Theater and The Book of Dead Philosophers.

Co-presented by LIVE from the NYPL and the Onassis Cultural Center New York

The original Antigone may be from antiquity, but our current era abounds with women fighting unabashedly for what they believe. To celebrate these heroes, the Onassis Cultural Center New York and LIVE from the NYPL invite Mona Eltahawy to the stage. A journalist, feminist, and author of Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, Eltahawy is a force to be reckoned with and an embodiment of this spirit. She is joined by yet another fierce and powerful author and journalist, Yasmine El Rashidi.

MONA ELTAHAWY is an award-winning columnist and international public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues and global feminism. She is based in Cairo and New York City. She is the author of Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, released April 2015, and is a contributor to The New York Times opinion pages. Her commentaries have appeared in several other publications and she is a regular guest analyst on various television and radio shows. Newsweek magazine named Eltahawy one of its “150 Fearless Women of 2012″, Time magazine featured her along with other activists from around the world as its People of the Year and Arabian Business magazine named her one of the 100 Most Powerful Arab Women.

YASMINE EL RASHIDI is an Egyptian writer. She is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and an editor of the Middle East arts quarterly Bidoun. A collection of her writings on the Egyptian revolution, The Battle for Egypt, was published in 2011. Her essays have been published widely, and anthologized in Best American Nonrequired Reading, Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution, Writing Revolution, and the New York Review Abroad: Fifty Years of International Reportage. El Rashidi was a 2015/16 Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library, and is currently teaching at Princeton University. Her debut novel, Chronicle of a Last Summer: A Novel of Egypt, was published this June. She currently divides her time between Cairo and New York.

Antigone in Ferguson is an innovative project that presents dramatic readings by acclaimed actors of scenes from Sophocles’ Antigone—an ancient Greek tragedy about what happens when personal conviction and state law clash, and violence ensues—for large, diverse audiences composed of concerned citizens, members of faith communities, and members of the law enforcement community, with the goal of generating powerful dialogue between these communities and fostering compassion, understanding, and positive action. The performance is followed by remarks from community panelists and a facilitated discussion. Antigone in Ferguson will premiere at Wellspring Church in Ferguson, Missouri on September 17, and then travel to New York City on October 15 for a performance at the Onassis Cultural Center New York before continuing to other locations.